Tag: education

Department of Education Caught Funding Teacher Training Program Implying Babies Are Racist

The cultural and political rot at the Department of Education runs deep.

According to material shared by the conservative anti-DEI activist Christopher Rufo, the department funded a teacher training program implying that babies develop racist traits from the age of just three. 

In online training session shared by Rufo, the instructor explained the issue of “Racial Awareness in the Early Years.”

Her training is supported by a PowerPoint that states:

AT 3 MONTHS — Infants who are shown pictures of faces can visually categorize them by race. They often show a preference for faces reflecting the race they see most often, which is typically their own race.

AT 9 MONTHS — Infants are unable to distinguish the facial features of people from racial groups other than their own unless they frequently see books and images featuring racially diverse people.

AT 2 YEARS —Children make strong associations between racial features and human behavior, and begin to use racial categories to understand behavior. Children are observing and internalizing power dynamics among children and adults.

AT 3 YEARS — Children of all races demonstrate social biases primarily by attributing positive traits to the dominant (white) race. Children can respond to positive messaging about their own and others racial identities.

AT 5 YEARS —-Children of all races demonstrate social biases primarily by attributing negative traits to non-dominant (non-white) races. Children are capable of recognizing and acting against racial injustice.

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Governor Lamont Proposes Universal Preschool, “Seeded By $300M From The Fiscal Year 2025 Surplus”

Governor Ned Lamont today announced that he is urging the Connecticut General Assembly to approve legislation he is proposing this session that would implement universal preschool.

“I want Connecticut to lead on early childhood education, and that means making preschool affordable and accessible for all of our kids,” Governor Lamont said. “Access to early childhood services is massively important to the state’s success, not only because these programs provide valuable tools for children that will lead them to professional achievements in the future, but also because being able to enroll your child in care right now means that parents can join the workforce and earn an income that supports their family. Connecticut has an opportunity to make an investment in our future by expanding access to affordable preschool.”

The governor’s proposal includes depositing a portion of the state’s anticipated surpluses over the next several years into a brand-new fund known as the Universal Preschool Endowment. The endowment would be seeded by $300 million from the fiscal year 2025 surplus, and in the following years any unappropriated surpluses from the General Fund will continue to be transferred into it. The endowment will be managed by the Office of the Treasurer, and the commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood may expend up to 10% of the balance of the endowment in any fiscal year.

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How one state is getting education RIGHT — by going back to basics

Another year, another nationwide education disaster laid out in the scores issued by the nation’s report card.

Math scores are down, reading scores are down, every year worse than the last, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Our kids can’t seem to recover from the school closures inflicted on them by the teachers’ unions and their weak politician friends during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What should American schools do to turn this around?

First they must face the reality of just how bad this problem has become. Even before COVID, our schools were on a slide to the bottom.

The pandemic just let American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, with special powers awarded by the Biden administration, keep schools closed and give them that extra push down.

The disruption measurably hurt so many kids, the poorest most of all — but the collapse of American education has been in the works for decades, as schools became indoctrination factories instead of places of education.

We need to change course, and Louisiana gives us a roadmap.

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Department of Education Cuts $15 Million in DEI Grants at Three Universities

Although Democrats are melting down over Elon Musk and President Trump’s attempts to downsize the federal government and ending woke DEI programs, throwing tantrums will not stop what’s coming.

Just days after taking office, President Trump signed a Memorandum placing all federal Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) employees on administrative leave, pending the termination of these programs under Trump’s “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions” Executive Order.

President Trump has also made it clear that the Department of Education (DOE) is set for major changes, if not complete closure.

The Gateway Pundit reported that Democrats, angry that an agency with an abysmal record for student achievement may actually have to face questions about its failures, attempted to barge their way into the DOE building in their latest publicity stunt.

Despite their petulant mewings, on Friday, the DOE announced it had canceled $15 million in federal grants that were used to fund diversity programs at three universities in order to align with the President’s Executive Order.

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A Massachusetts School District Rolled Back Advanced Classes. Teachers Are Starting To Revolt.

In 2021, a school district in Newton, Massachusetts, got rid of advanced classes in a bid to increase racial equity. But instead of reducing achievement gaps between racial groups, teachers are now sounding the alarm that the strategy is resulting in classrooms that serve neither struggling students nor high achievers. 

According to a Boston Globe article by reporter Carey Goldberg, several parents brought up similar concerns with the new policy—but say they were smeared as “racists” and “right-wingers.”

Goldberg writes that, in 2022, a group of three moms—all Democrats—started a petition to create a parental advisory panel for the school district. The move was motivated by what one parent described as “ideology superseding student needs,” following the school district’s decision to place students in “multilevel classes.” In these new classes, rather than sorting students by ability, students would learn together in the same classroom. The school also decided to stop allowing advanced math students to skip a year to access higher-level classes. The parents also shared concerns that the school’s approach to race and identity issues “emphasized differences rather than commonalities.”

The women say they were branded as far-right conservatives motivated by racial animus rather than a genuine concern for academic opportunities. According to Goldberg, Parent Teacher Organization newsletters urged parents to speak out against the petition at a public meeting. An email from local activist group Families Organizing for Racial Justice said that the petition was “tied to the apparent belief that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts that take race into account compromise academic excellence” and claimed that some petitioners “challenge the need for any activities related to micro-aggressions, inclusion, respect or belonging.”

“The mothers and their allies found themselves portrayed online and in public as dog-whistling bigots doing the bidding of right-wing national groups. Social media comments painted their side as ‘racism cloaked as academic excellence’ and ‘right-wing activism cloaked as parental concern,'” Goldberg wrote. At one meeting, a speaker compared those who supported the petition to “white women who helped perpetuate segregation and white supremacy.”

But years later, the Newton mothers are being vindicated. Teachers themselves are now openly criticizing multilevel classes, arguing that it isn’t serving students’ needs.

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There’s Been a Major Change in Attitude at the Department of Education

Each day, it seems like we learn a little more about the new Donald Trump administration. On Friday, Trump’s Department of Education made it appear as if it might embrace homeschooling. If so, this is a huge change from the Joe Biden administration, which was downright hostile toward any type of education that didn’t involve placing children in public school classrooms and indoctrinating them. 

Trump’s Education Department has a new blog on its website, and the very first post, which was published on Friday, is called “Homeschooling: The Lifeline We Didn’t Know We Needed.” It’s written by Stephanie D. Birch, a mother of two and homeschool advocate.  

It starts by recognizing that every child is unique and learns in different ways at different speeds, a concept that’s seemingly been lost in this country for a while: 

I remember how shocked I was when my three-year-old began reading. I quickly realized the educational pathway we planned would not meet her needs. I saw in her eyes that she had unlocked the magic of reading, and I knew the prescribed educational path would stifle her, leaving her mind yearning for more.  

We set out on an empowering journey that led us to homeschooling – the lifeline we didn’t know we needed. It gave us the space and flexibility to craft an education as unique as our children, nurturing their hearts and minds, and giving them the chance to grow into their best selves.   

Birch goes on to explain that she once fell for the stereotypes about homeschooling herself but that, upon embracing it, it her family saw changes she couldn’t imagine: 

I once believed in stereotypical misconceptions about homeschooling: Children lacking socialization, overly sheltered, and stuck completing worksheets. The truth is, homeschooling allows my children to learn, grow and blossom at a pace tailored to their rhythm for each individual area of study. For the kids who are neurodivergent, creative, or otherwise don’t fit the “traditional” mold, homeschooling allows them to shine. We’ve witnessed our kids thrive in things like STEM, art, robotics, fencing, martial arts, dance, and traveling to new places where they can immerse themselves in different cultures and histories in ways textbooks alone could never teach.  

I will point out that the fine print on the Education Department’s blog says, “Blog articles provide insights on the activities of schools, programs, grantees, and other education stakeholders to promote continuing discussion of educational innovation and reform. Articles do not endorse any educational product, service, curriculum or pedagogy.”  But if the first post is about homeschooling, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we’re heading in the right direction. 

Of course, this comes just a few days after Trump signed the “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families” executive order, which promotes school choice and supports putting decisions about education back into the hands of a child’s family, regardless of their geographic location or socioeconomic status. And it’s a complete 180 from the last administration, which wanted to have total government control over, well, just about everything, but especially education. 

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New Jersey Teachers No Longer Required to Pass Basic Literacy Test

Aspiring teachers in New Jersey are no longer required to pass a basic skills in order to be certified.

New Jersey Democratic Governor Phil Murphy passed Act 1669 as part of the state’s 2025 budget in June to address a teacher shortage, Read Lion reports. The law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2025. Individuals seeking an instructional certificate will no longer need to pass the Praxis Core Test, a basic skills test for reading, writing, and math that is administered by the state’s Commissioner of Education.

“We need more teachers,” Democratic Sen. Jim Beach, who sponsored the bill, said in May 2024 when the chamber cleared the bill in a 34-2 vote. “This is the best way to get them.”

Just a few months prior, Murphy also signed a similar bill into law that established an alternative pathway for teachers to sidestep the testing requirement. According to Read Lion, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), a teachers union, was a driving force behind the bill and called the testing requirement “an unnecessary barrier to entering the profession.” NJEA is associated with the National Education Association (NEA).

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Real Truth About Maryland’s Blueprint: Expensive Ineffective Reform Designed By Bureaucrats

It’s the same old song and dance from the education establishment. Design a ridiculously expensive, cumbersome reform to save public education, the same public education they ruined. Invite politicians, elite college professors, corporate CEO’s and other big name policy makers to draft the reform. Sprinkle in a token few “educators” and tell them all to “shoot for the moon” when writing the reform. Pretend that funding is unlimited. Throw in every unproven pet educational program du jour. Then, convince lawmakers that the reform as written is the only way to assure the successful futures of our children.

Never ONCE during the entire process think about nuts and bolts of the reform and whether it will actually work or not. When the reform fails, write articles on how it’s not that the reform itself that is flawed, but the “unrealistic goals, insufficient management, and inadequate funding” of the program that are lacking, with strong emphasis on funding being the blame.

And so here Maryland is in year five of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education leviathan spending bill and local governments and the state are discovering that, surprise, it’s not working and it’s not sustainable. What do the creators of the bill do?

They shift the blame off the people who created the mess and on to those who need to implement and pay for the mess.

In his article in MARYLAND MATTERS, December 16, 2024, Kalman Hettleman, one of the members of the Kirwan Commission who developed the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, bemoans the fact that the Blueprint has become a huge problem for state and local educators and education agencies as they fight to fund the full implementation.

Hettleman is a renowned “expert in education” and has a resume that includes being a past member of the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education (Kirwan Commission), member of Baltimore City school board, deputy mayor of Baltimore City, Maryland secretary of human resources, and Baltimore City director of social services. He had many other government positions in his career*. He is also the author of two books and numerous articles on public education. He was never a teacher. However, he has written several education books including this one:

It’s the Classroom, Stupid: A Plan to Save America’s Schoolchildren (New Frontiers in Education): Hettleman, Kalman: 9781607095491: Amazon.com: Books

From the summary of this book on Amazon:

In this book, Hettleman presents a bold, unconventional plan to rescue our nation’s schoolchildren from a failing public education system. The plan reflects the author’s rare fusion of on-the-ground experience as school board member, public administrator and political activist and exhaustive policy research. The causes of failure, Hettleman shows, lie in obsolete ideas and false certainties that are ingrained in a trinity of dominant misbeliefs. First, that educators can be entrusted on their own to do what it takes to reform our schools. Second, that we need to retreat from the landmark federal No Child Left Behind Act and restore more local control. And third, that politics must be kept out of public education.

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Experiments on Your Kids

Just this week, the Boston Globe published an article by Newton South High School math and physics teacher Ryan Normandin admitting that an allegedly progressive education experiment had been a failure.

Mind you, it was obvious to every single person on this planet that this experiment would fail.

But in the minds of these people, your kids exist to be experimented on, and to help usher in the progressive future.

Here was the experiment:

Let’s put all students in the same math class, regardless of skill.

Let’s put all students in the same foreign-language class, regardless of skill.

You already know a major motivation behind the policy: why, separating students by academic skill level yields insufficient “diversity” in the classroom.

Not keeping up with the latest in modern educational theory, you might have asked a coarse question like, “Will this new arrangement mean a better education for my kids?”

Oh, dear reader. The thought never even crosses their minds.

Precisely what you’re assuming would happen, happened.

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Explosive Report Exposes Biden-Harris Regime Weaponizes Dept. of Education Against Christian Colleges and Universities

The Biden-Harris regime has turned the Department of Education (DOE) into a battering ram against Christian colleges and universities.

According to an explosive report by the American Principles Project (APP), the DOE’s Office of Enforcement, resurrected by President Biden, has disproportionately targeted faith-based institutions, imposing massive fines and creating a hostile regulatory environment.

According to the report:

Days before his inauguration then President-elect Joe Biden wrote in a statement that “ensuring freedom of religion remains as important as ever” and that government must safeguard “bedrock protections.” No one should be “afraid to attend a religious service, school, or community center,” the statement asserts.

That statement is not representative of what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris actually believe. Since assuming office, the administration has waged an unprecedented assault against Christian colleges, universities, and students, while systematically protecting “elite” public and private institutions, foisting woke ideology on reluctant students, and enabling antisemitic, violent protests on campuses across the nation.

It’s done so by weaponizing the Department of Education’s Office of Enforcement—an obscure subsidiary of the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) that was created with the implicit intent of shutting down schools and programs that do not conform to the administration’s radical agenda.

This campaign, which has been advanced under the auspices of protecting students from “predatory” colleges and universities, threatens to erode traditional family values from higher education and financially squeeze and shut down schools that align with Christians’ values and beliefs.

Data analysis from the American Principles Project reveals that nearly 70% of enforcement actions by the Department of Education targeted faith-based or career-focused schools, which represent less than 10% of the student population.

Institutions like Grand Canyon University (GCU) and Liberty University—two of the country’s largest Christian universities—faced record-setting fines of $37.7 million and $14 million, respectively.

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